The head writer for the legendary CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful said the show will be using a blow-up doll as a stand-in for love scenes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The show which has been on the air since 1987 becomes the first to resume filming after shutting down amid the coronavirus outbreak in March. Bradley Bell, the soap's head writer and executive producer, said measures are being taken to keep the cast and crew safe while making new episodes. There's even a COVID Coordinator on the set making sure CDC protocols are always being followed.
"When we were reviewing the scripts we started taking out all the romantic scenes and [the scripts] just fell flat," Bell told The New York Post.
"We put our heads together trying to figure out a way to make these scenes work without breaking the eight-foot [distancing] rule... and we brought out a doll we used years ago as a corpse.
"We posed it and it was very convincing. It's a great doll and we'll be using her with hair and makeup as a stand-in to match some of our leading ladies."
He said the show currently has only the one blow-up doll, but producers are looking into obtaining more artificial actors. According to NPR the shows being filmed now will start airing in July.